What inspired you to create a “love letter” to Bristol’s nightlife? What did you feel was missing or needed to be celebrated?

J K-F: I discovered that Bristol had the most incredible music and arts scene where people shared ideas and cheered each other compared to London where I grew up.

I instantly fell in love. There’s so much talent and joy in this city. So after enjoying that and being part of it for 12 years I deeply understood the city’s nightlife was something that really needed to be protected and celebrated.

During the pandemic it felt like there was a lot of things that had gone wrong for venues and the music scene, with so many repercussions afterwards, but I did feel I wanted to also remember and honour all of the good stuff that we still have here. So, I think the love letter was a great way to remind people that, you know, we’ve gone through a difficult time, but we still have something really great on our doorstep, with still a hell of a lot to shout about, the good and bad.

C M: Yeah that’s spot on for me too. That is why I wanted to have a partner on this journey too, our own mini tribe. We grew our friendship out there on the dance floor and while broad in its look at night life this is our love letter to the energy we resonate with for sure. I have done books about places before, they are really always about people and living, and I was really receptive after the CreativeYouthNetwork asked me to do a project in the Hanham youth club to the idea that there are places you feel safe in, and grow in, that you need, to grow. That’s a loving relationship we have with people, space, the band, the city. You can’t take these places for granted and I wanted the love letter to be in the work “I love you, I’m with you, we will get through this together…”

I was looking for a more spiritual deeper project and I’ve always enjoyed that aspect of your personality Jazz. I’ve always enjoyed the spiritual connections we made on those nights out before we started this book.

Colin, what is it about documenting the world, specifically through street photography, that captured your attention when you first got into it versus now?

C M: I’ve always been drawn to the exciting energy of people interacting at cross-sections of life in the world and that’s something I’ve been developing as part of my practice forever. I put myself in places where there is lots of intersection between life cultures, energies, activism, real life and all these things can come out in places at night, but now I feel that I’m wanting to tell a story that is more meaningful that would have a structure, author a tale not just show it as it is. Challenge myself to dig deeper in an empathetic way. Hence the three chapters before, during and after Covid. That’s like a movie, and I have learnt to shape a photo story in detailed ways now that I was unable to do before. Take those last few pictures to do with the resurgence of the returning scene, of the nightlife, for me that’s the most powerful thing that I’ve learnt is to actually keep the camera in the bag when I’m in those places because it’s time to talk first, learn, educate myself, listen, and find out what the space is to the people I’m photographing rather than what it appears like to me. That’s  the epiphany. I’m aware of what these places are. I need to find out what it means to them. It’s their safe space and that is something photographers need to understand more.

Up All Night combines vivid street photography with interviews, poems, and personal reflections. How did you go about selecting the artists, promoters, and communities featured in the book?

J K-F: I’ve never written a book before so I didn’t really know how that worked. I didn’t realise how big of an undertaking it was. I had this dream of speaking to every single venue owner and promoter and artist and musician in the city but I quickly realised how difficult that would be after a year of contacting people.

It all felt more manageable and understandable when we narrowed down the book’s objective to portraying our own stories of Bristol’s nightlife, what a night out looked like just to us. I started thinking about the venues and the nights I’ve been really impacted by and the times I’ve shared so many great memories dancing into the morning with a few people that I don’t really know, on a street corner or in the bear pit. This is my story and so I made a point at the beginning of the book in its intro.”

C M: I’m just gonna add tiny bit, when it came to selecting people who don’t normally get seen in mainstream art and photography projects. Maybe it takes time for those people to trust the project and more importantly for you to learn and in my case fall in love with cultures that came to me on my book journey, organically. I decided to step out of the way a lot on this journey,  I saw the decision to bring CreativeYouthNetwork into the story a lot a vital one. Let Leo provide pictures from workshops with young people showing us how they valued his work. It taught me lots. I feel that we created places on these pages where people could come and share on their terms with us about their community that’s very powerful, big thinking way of working. Any places or people that stood out like this to me were people that needed documenting. Where I saw a resonance  between how Jazz and I were approaching the work and the communities we were meeting those were prioritised as tales to tell.

You’ve described this as a politically driven project. Can you elaborate on the political messages or themes you wanted to explore through the book?

C M: Jazz and I both love the grassroots cultures that have grown our scenes and music. We see the history as a living history. To avoid the arms in the air DJ shots and instead focus on the grassroots, the plugging in of the power cables into home made systems, that not just cultural representation… That’s a political act, especially now when diversity is like democracy facing tensions. People are pushing back on people again and I wanted to book to say “hey, we love this city to, open your eyes and see us”. That’s not just social documenting. That’s political. You’re choosing people you’re choosing your tribe in these shots and words, it is helping you to make decisions about your life that will shape society for the future.

Also… I’m aware of clubs that struggle, the Covid section of the book both of us deep down into how this affected the mind. And the body. The politics here is saying these spaces matter. Studying the effects that were not considered by the government about the value of spaces that got support or the impact on communities. What’s the difference in importance between a night at the opera and five people all riding on rambunctious decks together in the park? There is no opera in my book because politically I think it’s time to take the drum and the bass to the fore, in cultural capital terms. If Jazz and I can level up by representation, I’m up for trying at least.

Finally, protest pictures exist in the book because when people came out to protest for Kill The Bill there was an energy of familiarity like on the dance floor, a sense of being back in the group and there was movement.  Lots of movement. People were playing music through sound systems against riot shields so there is a reason that I’ve put political moments into the book. I’ve peppered the Covid section with angels and demons and music and flow. It’s telling you we need night life and it’s worth fighting for as well as reminding you that the power sits with you, not the so called powers that be.

The project began in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdowns. In your view, how did the pandemic affect Bristol’s nightlife and the communities connected to it?

J K-F: The pandemic has obviously traumatised people, even now I think we still feel a sort of mental toll that not every one can fully explain yet.

In the book I spoke with Annie McGann, who was a very important part of this project before I even joined, I asked her this question about how the pandemic affected Bristol. In her very direct, no nonsense way of putting things explained that a lot of people had been “effed up” by the pandemic. She said a lot of venue owners are still very mentally scarred by what happened – it was a dark time.

But, in that conversation she also described how there is also this natural order of things within the nighttime economy that kind of resets itself – when one venue closes another venue always seems to pop up and open. hearing that while thinking about Covid and how that affected Bristol‘s nightlife gave me a lot of hope because even in the face of a global pandemic there was still a glimmer of hope that places could still open and thrive. Venues such as Strange Brew are a testament to that but that’s not discredit or take away from those who did have to close or stop putting on nights and lose their livelihoods.

C M: Can I add a technical thing like the photographs with the flash and the moving the camera which are used a lot during the Covid section.  It is done as a very specific technical technique to show that we were mentally being very stretched by the experience of being shut down. It’s also my mental health being affected by being shut down, I’m adding a sort of music to locked down scenes to try and keep things sparking for me. Also, I was speaking to Paul from the Queenshilling and he wept when I was talking to him about lockdowns. He made me think about young people “coming out”  and with everything shut down where do the they… go? To do that? That really deeply affected me, made me realise a lot about my own privilege and I chose to look deeper with this project into spaces that some people with privilege like mine might not even choose to notice being badly effected by shutdowns.  The second and the last section tell the story more for the benefit of people who had their safe spaces removed. It widens the view. These feel like a “family” of moments compared to the first chapter which is still at its heart documentary. Add to the being de-socialised by not going out and you have one big reason to make the whole book and to keep going with the project.

The cover features members of Bristol’s Ballroom community. Why was it important for you to include this community in the book, and what about this particular image made it the right choice to open the story?

C M: Eyes are shut on the cover and for me it was like a pure moment of really acknowledging the power and love and safety that is Ballroom space. It’s a battle, the scene I put on the cover, between two people walking. Everything is locked together so well in that moment, a wall of love and support behind it all. It’s a photo, of all the photos in the book, about love and respect. Celebration and sanctuary. Pushing the boundaries but not just for the individual leg kicked so so high, but for all of us. That supreme high kick is for all of us. Yes! That’s the choice by putting this shot on the cover. Kick for the win, for love, to be your best, and be performing, riding on the respect from the crowd all around. Had to be the cover.

Everything Bristol stands for to me. It’s there.

It’s important to include this community in the book  because their values and they are family values mirror everything I love about this whole project – a sense of belonging – it’s the entire basis for working with Jazz in the first place so it mirrors that too. As I’ve just said with the Queenshilling people who belong to a community or  a tribe because it gives them something very important that they need which they can’t necessarily find somewhere else, something Jazz spoke about at the start of this interview coming up from London and finding her scene that made her feel like she belonged – it just feels right to ally with all that Ballroom speaks. That’s power. That’s special. This cover feels right.  They were and continue to be so welcoming. I give all my work with them to them first so it can serve the community, I could talk more about that but let me end on this.  DJ Dad says in the book it’s this new scene that’s doing the radical thing and pushing things forward right now, that’s the power we all need to see. The camera would stay in the bag for week after week when I first met them all and I would talk and I would learn about Ballroom, its roots, its families. Learn the walks. The camera only came out once they understood that I wanted to help and grow with them, make sure the work i did served them. I’ve never been part of any group before on a project they’re the only people who ever said to me “you are part of our community” and that means a great deal. Can’t really put it into words. That’s why I do the pictures and why they are leading this story by being at the front, round the side and walking to the back too.

What motivated you to extend the project into an outdoor gallery space and partner with JACK ARTS?

J K-F: Well, the act of going out and roaming the streets, finding adventures in strangers, adventures in music, is what our book  is all bout. In light of that displaying the book on billboards makes a lot of sense. To be inviting the public to see the book whilst on their night out and seeing our nights out on these billboards and seeing these little different world interacting it’s all part of these story we’ve been trying to tell. That’s what we’re about.

C M: My photography is music so putting those works up all around a club is perfect. I try and teach people when I’m doing workshops that you don’t do photography to take pictures. You synchronise with life and compose little life stories or emotions into rectangles so people can have an emotional response to them. To take people to these places via your work. That’s how I do it. To see this work and now it’s part of the scene itself. Wow. That is what  it’s about.  I always want to return work back to where it’s from and then it and we grow. If I didn’t do that I would become artistically and spiritually stunted. To have work become part of that culture on these boards it’s a deep joy of return for me and Jazz, by returning these images and words to the side of a nightclub it means people will queue up to come into Lakota and they’ll be looking up at the pictures and they’ll be leaning back against it having cigarettes.

When we started this project we had conversations about making sure this becomes part of the scene and this is exactly the sort of thing that we’re doing and Jack Arts are allowing that to happen in such an appropriate way, and that’s very powerful. It’s also the spirit of collaboration between Jack Arts and us, that’s as you can see from my answers about Ballroom how we roll.

The outdoor gallery is located near Lakota, one of Bristol’s most iconic and long-standing nightclubs. What significance does this location hold for the project and the event?

C M: Well, we just answered that but I would add showing the hardest stuff that people may not want to remember from that time in that queue, people who have been de-socialised by the Covid experience who maybe haven’t found a way to navigate completely out of that zone even now…

Blue Mountain which features a lot in the book is gone now, a ghost space full of pile drivers and cranes. They were neighbour clubs and as you will see in the book it’s when there are tribes of clubs that scenes flourish, so having the show round Lakota is important. To say we are with you, we cherish your history, and he hope for a strong future.

If our pictures and words can in anyway help people  to reach out to a tribe of their friends and to grow and to heal then I would like the work to be a celebration and people to simply know you need clubs like Lakota to not just heal but to live. Clubs are life. No royal box, but to the faithful inside it’s as culturally important as any music venue can ever be.